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Guillaume de Fondaumiere - Part One

The Quantic Dream co-CEO talks tax breaks - and why the cultural test should only be the first step

The final session at this year's GameHorizon conference was an in-depth demonstration of Sony's forthcoming story-driven title Heavy Rain, by the co-CEO of the development studio Quantic Dream.

But Guillaume de Fondaumiere hasn't been focusing all his time on the creation of games, having successfully lobbied the European Commission and the French government to allow tax breaks to be given to the games industry.

That system, which began in 2008, was based on a cultural test - a phrase used in the UK's recent Digital Britain report. Here, the man himself talks about the problems with that test, why it's not fair, and what the next steps in the battle for media parity should be.

GamesIndustry.biz What brings you to GameHorizon?
Guillaume de Fondaumiere

It's very interesting for us, as a French developer, to come to the UK - we know that the UK is the most vibrant place in Europe for game development, so it's interesting for us to showcase what we're doing on Heavy Rain, and present this project that's very different from anything that's out there.

We're working with Sony Computer Entertainment, based in Liverpool, so we have many friends here - it's interesting to understand what others are doing here in the UK.

GamesIndustry.biz We spoke briefly at the Nordic Game conference about your instalment as chairman of the EGDF - one month on, with some time to reflect, what are your thoughts on the challenges now?
Guillaume de Fondaumiere

Well, I've been following the work of the EGDF since it was founded in Paris back in 2006, so I'm very much aware of the issues. As I said before, when the national trade bodies started to work together, we didn't know exactly what we were doing. I think it was more a way to share best practices.

But the more we started to work together, the more we started to realise that we have a common destiny, that each country can't do it on its own - except maybe the UK, which is certainly leading the way in Europe - but the more we were discussing topics such as tax credits and education, the cultural recognition of games and the debate on violence or addiction, we found that we had the same issues to tackle.

So I think in the past three years the awareness of EGDF members has grown towards crafting this common destiny - making sure everyone works better together to not only share best practices but also solve some of the issues that we face.

Today I think we're still confronted with the same critical points, the same issues. I guess the most important one at the moment is tax credits and cultural recognition, because the two come together. I think today we're in a time of economic crisis, the games industry seems be doing okay, but we all know that times are getting more difficult - and that if some are very successful still, others are struggling. I think it's high time now for governments to not only help the banks and the motor industry, but also an industry of the future - the videogame industry.

We're still pretty fragile as an industry, especially in Europe on the development side, and it's not because we have a few studios that are very successful that we shouldn't consolidate on those successes and try to improve the framework and ecosystem that enables all of us to flourish in the next decade.

We know that tax breaks are extremely effective in stimulating an industry, and I think again that Montreal and Quebec have shown us the way. If you listen to representatives of Invest in Quebec, they'll tell you that they've invested hundreds of million of dollars in the industry - but look at how it benefited our country, our region. I think the last time I was presented the numbers they'd invested CAD 400 million, with a return on that investment of CAD 600 million.

So I think it's high time for governments, and the EU, to understand that money given in the form of tax breaks to the industry is not money thrown away. It's an investment with a very high return, so it's time that we had those breaks.

We established a tax break in France on January 1 last year, so we have a whole year of projects that have been submitted and received breaks, and it's been very interesting - because for the first time we have a clear picture of what's being produced in France. I know, for instance, that out of the 110 project submitted, approximately 40 per cent passed the famous cultural test and have been granted tax breaks.

The total of the budgets that were submitted were around EUR 170 million - the first time we know how much is being produced in France, and taking into account we probably don't have 100 per cent of the picture here, maybe that number is EUR 200 million of game development budgets. That's quite a high number, and shows how dynamic the development community is in France.

The tax breaks for 2008 are about EUR 15 million, so that's a lot of money... but on the other hand you have to compare that number with the EUR 700 million that the French film industry is getting - those are numbers that are quite considerable.